Your eyes flutter open, the blurry ceiling lights and the smell of antiseptic immediately overwhelming your senses. Your head feels heavy, and as you try to make sense of where you are, muffled voices filter into focus. Before you can gather a thought, figures start crowding into your line of vision.

“Thank god, you’re finally awake,” a gruff, relieved voice says, and you feel a large hand gently squeeze your shoulder. Another voice chimes in, this one warm with humor, “Finally caught up on some beauty rest, aye?”

They’re all talking, voices blending in an excited, disjointed way as each one says something different. They’re talking about some mission that went sideways, a close call, how they were all taking turns by your bedside. One of them—maybe the one with the mohawk?—is laughing, talking about some story you can’t quite follow.

“Don’t scare us like that again, alright?” another voice says, and the concern is clear in his tone, though his words are light, almost teasing. The warmth in his eyes makes you feel… something, something you can’t place.

Your heart races, overwhelmed by the strange faces around you. Something isn’t right, and the familiarity they seem to have with you only makes the discomfort grow.

“Who… who are you?” you whisper, looking from one to the other.

The room falls silent, all the voices stopping mid-sentence. The man closest to you—he has a thick beard and gentle, steady eyes—looks as if he’s just been punched. “It’s… it’s me. Price,” he says, as if that should mean everything.

The others stare, jaws tight, the disbelief plain on their faces. The one they called Soap runs a hand over his face, muttering something under his breath. Beside him, a taller man in a skull-patterned mask—Ghost, you think someone said—stares at you, unblinking, a deep pain evident in his posture.

“Love, it’s us,” another voice finally says, soft but desperate, like he’s hoping you’ll remember. Gaz, someone called him. “We’re… we’re here.”

But the truth is, they’re all strangers.